RICS president Roy Swanston argues that surveyors must expand the range of skills that they can offer the market before other professions encroach too heavily on their territory.
Education and research are of the first importance to any professional body. They are a vital component of the profession’s credibility and ensure that the services provided by its members reflect the skills and knowledge required in the markets which they serve.
Unfortunately, many of my colleagues seem to believe that once they have achieved membership of the RICS, their professional education is at an end. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth or more likely to damage the long-term credibility of the profession and its ability to compete in a tough market-place.
We need a coherent, seamless system of education and training which extends from the time that an individual decides to train as a surveyor until retirement. Employers have an increasingly important part to play in ensuring that this happens.
The property industry is now more integrated with other markets, and the role of property assets is widely understood. Many more people are claiming competence to advise on the creation, ownership, management and occupation of property assets, and the profession must respond positively to this challenge. It needs to build on its strengths in order to expand from its natural property base into other related markets.
If the profession does not expand, it will contract, as more and more of its overall market is occupied by those claiming a broader competence than chartered surveyors.
Hence, I am forced to disagree with many of my colleagues, especially those in smaller practices, who seek to return the education of surveyors to narrow technical issues. Rather, I see it as vital that we encourage graduates to gain a broad education in both property and business management and then, after joining the profession, to specialise when they have discovered their strengths and interests.
The RICS’ educational policy document, A Strategy for Action, deals persuasively with the need for broad preparation for professional careers. In this case, breadth must involve learning from the practical experience of older colleagues. The medical profession sets a good example here. Those who are engaged in medical research and teach at our universities are held in esteem by both their colleagues and the public. In my opinion, surveyors should take a similarly positive view.
Chartered surveyors must help universities to develop their teaching and research programmes. Employers are “customers” in the markets served by the academic institutions. Surveyors need to make universities aware of the strengths and weaknesses of their graduates and stress new areas of knowledge which should be incorporated into courses as well as areas which might be pruned. Of course, employers must bear in mind that a university is there not simply to cram facts and figures into its students’ minds but also to develop their capacity for analytical thought.
Employers might also offer opportunities for academics to spend time with them in order to gain up-to-date experience of professional practice. This would help to put students’ academic studies into a proper context, and could well lead to mutually beneficial consultancy or collaborative research ventures. Salford University, for example, has gained much from its collaboration with RICS members in the field of expert systems research.
Senior members could offer services (it need not be time-consuming) such as visiting degree course lecturers. This small gesture can forge closer links between practice and university departments, which can only be beneficial for those involved. Also, research which is undertaken jointly by the profession and universities is more likely to have a practical application than research by academics alone.
Chartered surveyors have an obligation to ensure that the graduates they employ have a structured programme of training and experience. The Assessment of Professional Competence must not be seen simply as a test at the end of two years’ ad hoc employment. Furthermore, all employers must follow the lead of those firms which are developing post-graduate training schemes to update the professional knowledge of their staff and to ensure that staff acquire the business skills necessary for managers.
The Wilson Centre diploma course, starting in January 1995, has this objective. I am disappointed that so few firms have encouraged staff to undertake this exciting and demanding new programme of post-graduate education.
I recognise that some smaller firms have difficulties structuring training in an ideal fashion. Small firms have to respond to workload pressures and sudden changes in priority, and they may argue that they cannot afford the necessary resources. However, others argue that, in small firms, trainees are less likely to be “pigeon holed”, will be thrown quickly into professional practice, and will, therefore, enjoy wider practical experience.
I would like to encourage practices up and down the country to devote time and effort to the universities which provide surveying education, and to sponsor research projects which develop the knowledge and skills necessary to a growing profession. Some firms are already active here, but there is still much more to be done.
